The Holy Trinity

After receiving my King in Holy Communion a few days ago, I was trying to pray. Yet, I was completely distracted thinking of a children’s book we had listened to on a trip the weekend before. Suddenly an image of the Trinity came into my mind.

The Triune God was sitting on a throne, and in front of the throne were three mirrors. In each mirror was one Person of the Trinity.

The whole thing took just an instant. I could not see the face of God, and the Figures in the mirror were murky. My response was one of wonder, and many times during the course of the day, the image returned to me, bringing more wonder.

Was this of God? It does not seem possible that it was just my imagination because it was so far from anything I was thinking about or anything I could have come up with, but I will withhold judgment until I speak to my confessor.

What if…

What if, in order to receive the Holy Eucharist, we had to journey to Rome or Jerusalem? What if it were once in a lifetime like Muslims traveling to Mecca?

How then would we see this Gift which is Our Lord Himself? Would we not then see it for what it is–a Gift beyond measure? The pearl of great price?

Instead–oh wonder–we are able to receive Our Lord each week or each day if we so desire at no cost to ourselves. The cost is all His. We receive freely. How unspeakably generous, how gloriously humble is this God Who gave us His Son and this Son Who gave back to His Father His death so that justice may be done and we may be freed from the shackles that we so fully deserve. And as if that were not enough, He gives us each day His own self to feed us so that we may share in the life of the Trinity!

Oh, glorious King! Help me to see how a great a Gift the Eucharist truly is just as much as if it were something I could receive only once in a lifetime. Help me to see You as You are and to become as like to You as I can.

Integrity

A Bible,
A crucifix,
A rosary from Rome,
A statue or two,
The Imitation of Christ,
A confirmation certificate.

All that is left of a child’s faith,
Tattered and torn
Like all broken things,
Like all broken men,
Rejected, returned.

At least, I think to myself,
He gave them back to us
Instead of throwing them in the garbage
Before going to pursue a path
That breaks a mother’s heart.

In so doing he gave back his inheritance,
Not quite squandered like the prodigal son,
For in our keeping still
For the day of his return
When we shall run down the road to meet him with joy.

Ah, What Glory!

Ah, what glory!
The Godhead comes
To inhabit a broken world.
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Ah, what glory
The Godhead comes
To inhabit my wounded soul.
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

The Rich Young Man

I have always found the story of the rich young man worthy of a great deal of pondering. What attachments hold each of us back from saying yes to Jesus in a wholehearted way? I decided to write a little “what if” story about that man. It is entirely the work of my imagination. I hope you enjoy the possibilities.

Once there lived a man. He was beloved of all his neighbors for he was kind and generous. They all knew that if they were in trouble, he was always available with a kind word, with bread, or with money to pay off the unscrupulous.

He was a young man, and his name was Samuel. His parents had both died before he grew his beard, and he was an only son. He was pious and a keeper of the law.

One day as he walked home from Synagogue, he chanced to see a man unlike any other surrounded by smiling children and speaking to the crowd about the kingdom of God.

As the man rose and prepared to leave with some of his followers, Samuel, who had listened carefully, walked up to Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life.

His heart leapt when Jesus told him to follow the commandments. He was able to say truthfully that he always had. Jesus looked at him with love, yet his look was tinged with sadness, for he knew that Samuel, kind and generous though he was, was deeply attached to the wealth that made his life light on his shoulders. Yet upon looking at Jesus’ eyes, Samuel felt a stirring he had never known before—a stirring to follow this man, this one who looked at him with love.

The next words, however, were too much to bear—sell what you have, give it to the poor, and follow him.

Yes! Follow him! He was invited. But how could he be who he was without the wealth that was his? Who would he be without the ability to help those in need? He would be just like them—without security. Perhaps he could give some. Maybe even half, but Jesus demanded—no, asked—for all.

All these thoughts passed through his mind and heart in an instant, and sadly, slowly, he turned to go, not really hearing the questions the followers of Jesus continued to ask.

He went home and walked up and down the path through his courtyard pondering, thinking, trying to find the strength to do what Jesus asked. When one of his servants brought him something cool to drink, he saw her and wondered what would become of those who served in his household if he left. It was impossible.

A few months later, however, he found himself following Jesus once again as Jesus carried a brutal cross out of Jerusalem. As he bore witness to his death, he was deeply saddened by it, but he was also relieved that he had not thrown away his wealth for this man who died such a short time later and did not become king as so many had foretold.

From the cross, though, Jesus met Samuel’s eyes, and Samuel saw—he couldn’t say just what he saw really—stars and light and galaxies and love—and he knew that he still had to do what Jesus asked. Not had to in the sense that he had no choice, but had to because this man asked it of him as he died on the cross for love.

Fifty days later, he stood among a crowd while the followers of Jesus baptized those who were there, and he too came forward to be baptized. That same day, he took the proceeds from his property and shared it with those in need, making sure that the members of his household would have what they needed. Then he left with a man named Thomas to go East and proclaim the word that Jesus was God and that the poor in spirit would see Him and share eternity in His glory.

And Samuel walked with God.

“Allow God to Crush Your Will”

“Allow God to crush your will.”  Those were the words a little more than a year ago that came from the mouth of my confessor.  Those strong, terrifying words came out of the mouth of a gentle, self-effacing and faithful young priest whose words usually reflected his personality, unlike these words.

 

The words have echoed in my mind again and again since then, and they strike me as having been very much from the Holy Spirit.  At the time he said them to me, I had just confessed a number of sins related to the fact that my husband was likely to lose his job–sins of charity mostly against everyone involved, and the sin of failing to trust God. 

 

Not long after that, my husband did in fact lose his job, and we left the beautiful place we had moved to when he took the job, thinking at the time that it was God’s will that we go there–and perhaps it was in spite of the fact that externally it was a failure–not the first and probably not the last.   

 

We returned to the desert, and it took quite some time for him to find another job.  For awhile, he looked for professional jobs, but nothing was forthcoming.  Finally, he began to look for just any old job. Now he has 2 such jobs, but they are both part time, and they all pay something not far above minimum wage.  He is working 7 days a week and often going straight from one job to another.  I too am working long hours, combining that with homeschooling our children and trying to keep the house reasonably clean.  My time is not my own, and I miss having time with my husband.  When I stop at about 9:30 at night with the children tucked in, work completed, and the laundry in process once again, I often decide that I would like to watch some TV episode on my computer or read a chapter from a good book, but I rarely make it through a chapter or an episode before I am sound asleep, too exhausted to relax.  I wake up still tired and try to pray and then get starting working before the children wake up so I can get a little of my work done in the quiet.

 

In addition, there is the perpetual problem of prayer.  I am obligated by my promises as a secular Carmelite to spend 30 minutes of time praying “mental prayer” each day.  Far from consoling or fruitful (at least in any way I can judge), it is, to put it rather dramatically, my daily torture.  There is no sense of God, and I spend the time completely distracted.  I have nothing to say to this God I claim to love, but I cannot keep silent either. It is all I can do not to leap out of bed to get started working or anything really other than this time of prayer that is so utterly without success in any recognizable form.  It has been like this for several years now.  Before, there were consolations, but perhaps they were all in my imagination.

 

There is more–a great deal more in fact, but I will stop here.  I tell you all of this not so you will pity me.  Perhaps, in fact, anyone who is reading this may be glad to know that he or she is not alone in living a whirlwind work-a-day life that doesn’t seem to accomplish much.

 

I mention all this because it just occurred to me that, if I had a “normal” “secure” exterior life, I think I would be very self-satisfied.  Truth be told, I once was very self-satisfied and very sure that everyone should live as I live.  

 

Now, if I could merely homeschool the children and didn’t need to work, I would be proud of the success of my endeavor.  If I only had to work and not homeschool the children, I would be satisfied with my career and my accomplishments.  If I did not have either but simply worked to make our house a home and help the children with their homework when they got home from school, then I would be proud of that and tell everyone I met how they too could live this ideal lifestyle.  I would assume that that life (any of the three) was because of all of my strengths and virtues, all the greatness that I had labored and sacrificed to achieve.  I would not see God’s hand in it at all.  The success that I perceived would be “mine, all mine.”

 

If all of my external life was of little apparent value (as in fact it is more or less) but I received spiritual delights in prayer, I would believe that my external life was a form of martyrdom and that I was something special and above ordinary mortals–that the external life was not at all my doing but God’s plan to do something extraordinary in the world through me.

 

Ha!

 

“Allow God to crush your will.”  I am hanging onto a cliff edge, digging my nails into the dirt and rock lest I fall, but I am pretty sure at least on the level of womanly intuition that God wants me to fall and will continue to make sure that I do not succeed in any of the ways I expect to see success until I do.  Is this the stuff of a dark night?  Perhaps, but honestly, does it really matter if I can define it as such?  Another wonderful priest nearby recently said that we should consider our lives as secular Carmelites as one of surrender, not sacrifice.  Sacrifice says, “Look at me.  Look, God, at what a wonderful thing I am doing for you.”  Surrender says, “I offer all to You, not knowing how You will use me, how my life will look.  I give my life to You consciously, knowing that it is already Yours but choosing to let that be so more fully.  My gift of surrender is nothing.  Your gifts to me are everything, even when they take the form of suffering.”

 

He is teaching me to be little, to be unimportant in the world, to be of no account to anyone outside my own family.  And hard as this is to believe, in this moment of grace, I believe this is a good thing.  I believe that when finally I fall off the cliff because I am utterly beyond my strength, He will catch me.  And then and only then will I have the humility to really trust Him instead of trusting myself.

 “Allow God to crush your will,” my confessor said.  I believe He is doing just that.  I hope He finishes soon so that I can truly begin to live out His will instead of my own.  I hope he gives me the strength to surrender fully, to trust completely, to live always for Him.

Who will he be?

Who will be the next vicar of Christ?  The conclave starts on Tuesday, and after a sense of loss and mourning at losing our dear papa (made far easier by the fact that Pope-Emeritus Benedict is still living on Earth) among Catholics around the world, we now look to the future.  Who will he be?  I have been mostly ignoring the secular media in all their discussion of Church politics and what kind of “administrator” is needed in 2013 to lead the Church. 

Instead, my question is a little different than which “papabile” will be chosen by a group of 115 men in red hats.  No, what I’m wondering is who the Holy Spirit will choose through 115 men in red hats.  Will it be someone from Africa, South America, Asia?  Will it be someone from the United States or Canada?  Or will they return to tradition and Europe, or specifically Italy? 

Again, what I think doesn’t matter, though a part of me hopes he will be from Africa.  The Church in Africa is growing by leaps and bounds, but more importantly, I think that a poor man from a poor country might make it easier for people who care deeply about the poor to hear about topics like abortion, contraception, and religious freedom as well. 

Ultimately, the man chosen to be the servant of the servants of God will be the Holy Spirit’s choice, and God alone has the knowledge to choose, albeit while working through 115 men in red hats.  I can rest easy, with hopeful expection, knowing that the Holy Spirit will make the right decision. 

Creatures Tripping in Darkness

Creatures tripping in darkness

Searching for the light

But not finding it.

 

Finally, the one asks the other,

“Is there any?”

The other doesn’t answer.

It grows darker.

 

I wrote that dark little poem about 20 years ago.  It seems somewhat fitting right now.  My husband has been looking for a job for sometime now.  I am working, and he is not, which is unusual in our lives.  We are not desperate, but my work is not enough to make ends meet by itself, and his unemployment benefits are about to run out.

He is a theologian, and we live in a place where what he can do would not be likely to be needed here.  Fortunately, though he definitely does have some aspects of the stereotypical “absent-minded professor,” he is also very capable in many other areas, including the ability to make or fix pretty much anything.

Right now, we are at a crossroad once again.  (How many times?)  He has the possibility of working as a theologian somewhere far away in the best of all possible circumstances.  It isn’t certain yet–not at all–just an interview coming up.  We have determined that if nothing comes of this, we will stay here in the desert (which is fitting), and he will find (hopefully) some very ordinary job.  In many ways, that would be better.  Moving is very hard both physically and emotionally, for us and for our children, and we have done it more than most for varying theology-related jobs for my husband.  Oh, if only we knew what God wanted of us.  If only He would let us know, but He leaves us in darkness, groping to know His will.  Why is it so hard?  What is He trying teaching us through this?  To teach me?

Well, I really don’t know, but here are a few things I have found:

• Nothing is permanent, nothing secure except God Himself.
• There are good people everywhere–really good people to learn from.  Once (gulp, do I have to admit this?) I thought we were the gift when we moved someplace new.  I believe now that part of God’s will moving from place to place was to learn from the example of really wonderful people in each place.
• Having less stuff is much easier than having more stuff–especially when you have to move it.
• There is something very good about being little and obscure.
• That I have placed too much pride in my husband’s theology jobs.  Even if my idea of success is already something other than (and I would say better than) money and all of its trappings, it is still pride.
• That God’s idea of success (and thus the reality of the matter) is different than my idea of success.  His idea of success is sanctity.  Mine is, well, still far too wrapped up in human trappings and the ability to say, “My husband is a….”
• That I still have a long way to go in order to be able to truly embrace “Lady Poverty.”

Well, I do not even know whether to pray that my husband gets this theology job or not.  I live in darkness, you see, and cannot even see a step ahead, much less the end of all things, so I will simply pray for His Holy Will to be done for us and through us.  Please pray with me.

 

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Happy Birthday, Jesus! It is a bit strange that this Christmas, i keep thinking more of Your passion than of Your birth.

In a way, was not Your whole life Your passion, culminating with calvary but beginning, not i think with the Your enfleshment in the womb of Your sinless mother but instead with Your departure from there–Your first tabernacle–into the cold and broken dark of that cave where You were born, my Love.

Still, there you had Your mother’s voice, her soft touch, her warm milk to soothe Your hungry body.

Later, instead of Mary’s soft voice, You would hear the crowds shout, “Crucify Him!” Instead of the Blessed Virgin’s gentle hand, You accepted the brutality of whips tearing Your precious flesh. Instead of Your beautiful mother’s sweet milk, You tasted only bitter gall to match the bitterness of Your passion.

At Your birth, You were laid in a manger. The night before You died, You became food for us poor unworthy men to partake in and so to become more like You. In doing so at the last supper, i think You broke through the veil of time, for it would be the next day’s sacrifice of God-the-Son-of-God to the Father for us sinners when You became the pelican feeding its young with its life blood.

In between, You remained poor. I heard a priest say that when You lived on earth, a carpenter was one without land and therefore one who was poor. Even more than most carpenters of the day, it must have been true for St. Joseph because he left his business after Your birth to go to Egypt and then again to return to Israel and go to Galilee–both times for Your proection.

As a man, You spent Yourself completely. You had nowhere to lay Your head until You finally laid it on the wood of the cross as You cried out to Your Father. Only after your death could your mother hold You in her arms once again. Last all, You were laid in the tomb.

Then, O Joy of Joys, Glory of Glories, You returned to life once more.

Happy birthday, Jesus.

And thank You.

a grain of wheat

Some months ago, I went to a talk called “Padre Pio and Spiritual Darkness.”  I went alone, and all the way there I determined not to ask questions or make comments if there was an opportunity because so often what I say is out of pride.  During the talk, the speaker really spent at least as much time speaking about St. John of the Cross as he did speaking about St. Pio.  They are both dear to me, so that was great.

At the same time, though, I had been reading St. John of the Cross and was really astonished by something this great saint said.  He said that if we think God has said something to us, we should tell our spiritual director and then forget about it.  How odd, I thought, when I read it.  I mean, if God bothered to speak to one of His creatures, shouldn’t that creature pay attention?

Well, contrary to my determination not to speak, when the period for Q&A came, I had to ask, and yes, there was pride involved.  Just the question was a way of saying, “Look at me.  I read St. John of the Cross, and I’m so brilliant I can question a doctor of the Church.”  Huh!  Nonetheless, I asked how this could be–what St. John of the Cross could possibly mean when he said we should basically ignore God Himself.

That is when something rather odd happened.  The speaker looked at me hard, and he quoted the following:

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,

it remains only a single grain;

but if it dies,

it yields a rich harvest.

I’m sure you recognize the quote.  Then, still looking at me, he said, “Do you understand?”

I said something like, “Not really.”  Time sort of stopped while he was quoting from the Gospel–not really stopped–more like it was in bold.  Then it went back to normal, and he made some ordinary explanation that I have completely forgotten.

Well, all the way home, those words from Scripture echoed through my mind.  The next morning, I decided to look them up.  I knew the words were from the Gospel and that Jesus had spoken them, but I didn’t know where.  I had no idea what the connection between my question and that answer could be.

When I picked up my Bible to look them up the next morning, though, I had this instantaneous thought of something like, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I opened right to it?” followed also instantaneously by something like, “But that sort of thing never happens to me.”

Well, I opened my Bible, and it opened to a page that I had stuck a sheet of paper in as a bookmark some years before.  I had bookmarked the left side of the page.  On the right side of the page were those words from John 12 that the brother giving the talk had spoken to me.  Clearly God was trying to tell me something.  I read the rest of the chapter because one should always interpret Scripture with Scripture I am told.  Then, still confused, I set it aside.

About a week later, one of my daughters asked me some theological question, and I said, “Let’s look it up in the Catechism.”  Guess what was staring me in the face when we got to the part of the Catechism related to her question?  Yep, there it was again–the same words from John 12.

As far as I can tell, he wasn’t answering my question–not really.  It seems to me that instead, (inspired by the Holy Spirit given later events) he was answering my pride.